


Slow blink

by madelita



Series: Cabin adventures [3]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28872654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelita/pseuds/madelita
Summary: Truth is, he’s not trying to start anything, and Kuroba knows. Better yet, Kuroba is fine with it. While Kudou and Hakuba are being their insatiable selves, the two of them can just sit here.It feels like it should be the other way around.
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru/Hattori Heiji/Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Hattori Heiji/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Series: Cabin adventures [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117394
Comments: 8
Kudos: 60





	Slow blink

**Author's Note:**

> So remember when I said that I wasn't planning on writing any more of this? Yyyyeah, about that… Don't you worry, I'm already putting my clown make up on.
> 
> There are… many ways to imagine the boys' relationship to intimacy of any kind, and I'm not fully decided on which one I like best, but for now, I decided to make Heiji lazy, and turn Kaito into a cat. Maybe I'm just in a lazy mood myself.  
> You could consider all of this ooc, and I would totally understand.
> 
> Full of mistakes and other hijinks as usual.
> 
> Please enjoy!

It’s the second to last day they’re spending in Hakuba’s cabin. Just as well -- any longer, and the comfortable drowsiness they feel would be replaced by first boredom, then impatience and frustration. He’s already making a little list in his head about all the things he wants to do once he goes back to Osaka, and there’s a different list for all the things that are waiting to be done, work piling up in his absence. And maybe he’s not looking forward to the tedium of filling out paperwork, but he does miss solving cases. (It seems that Kudou’s, Hakuba’s and his own tendency for bumping into murders left and right and Kuroba’s habit of always getting tangled up in (mostly) harmless trouble balanced each other out. The one case they ended up solving during their vacation was simple theft.)

But there is still time, until then. Time that can be spent doing nothing, without guilt.

Heiji can’t complain. The couch is comfortable, the cabin is filled with sunlight, and Hakuba’s inferior taste in mysteries still gives him enough entertainment for moods like this, when all he wants is to sit idly. He didn’t know it would be so easy.

From somewhere up on the first floor, he hears Kudou and Hakuba, muffled by the closed door. He listens for a moment, then returns to his book.

He really thought he would be more territorial, like he had been a few years back with Kazuha. He also thought he’d have more of an appetite, so to speak. But instead, he’s just… cozy.

He chuckles to himself. Maybe he’s getting old.

Or maybe he’s like Kuroba, who is neither as loud, nor as tireless as he likes to seem, and who has just emerged from the kitchen after yet another cocktail-experiment. The result is in his hand: a glass overfilled with something orange, dark pink, and brown. The shirt he wears belongs to Heiji, half buttoned, hanging off his shoulder. The socks are Hakuba’s, too big but, according to Kuroba, perfectly soft. To complete his series of thefts, he likes to wear Kudou’s underwear, but Heiji isn’t sure he’s wearing any at the moment.

He pads over to the couch, half sipping, half chewing on the bright green straw in his drink, eyes half lidded, almost as if he’s not quite aware where he’s going or what he’s doing. Heiji knows better, of course, but it doesn’t lessen the effect. He’s just walking over the coffee table when Kudou gets particularly loud upstairs. Kuroba looks up, tilts his head, and listens, still absently chewing on the straw.

“Do you want to join them?” Heiji asks. He wouldn’t mind if Kuroba said yes, he finds, if Kuroba decided to also go up while Heiji stayed there. He almost doesn’t remember that bitter taste of jealousy in the back of his throat.

But Kuroba just shrugs, then settles down against Heiji’s side. He looks soft, sitting there, and if it wasn’t for his weight, Heiji might think he’s an illusion. But there are parts that are viscerally real, little details: the trail of purple leading down from his neck to underneath the shirt, the tips of his fingers that Heiji knows and remembers all too well, the inside of his thigh where Heiji’s hand fits perfectly. His eyes, big and insistent and suddenly very close, as he pushes the concoction he made towards Heiji until the straw is poking his lip.

One little sip, the burst of sugar, fruit, chocolate, and some sharp tasting booze exploding on his tongue. He hums. Kuroba’s eyes turn crescent shaped, and he leans back on Heiji’s shoulder.

He’s not sure how much time passes. Enough for Kudou and Hakuba to quiet down, but then again, they’ve been at it for a while. Enough for that ray of golden sunlight to move across the floor, and slither up the coffee table, so Kuroba can rest his heels on the edge of it and sun his crossed legs. Not much else -- there’s no clock in the living room, probably on purpose.

He keeps on reading, because it’s easy, because he’s comfortable, because there’s nothing else he needs to do. He runs through the paragraphs, addressing a couple of choice words to the author who is too damn posh for their own good. (They think that instant coffee is a sign of poverty, for god’s sake!) Somewhere along the way, he stops paying attention to the words, and matches his breathing to Kuroba’s. He tilts his head until he feels Kuroba’s soft hair against his cheek, stays there while his mind wanders over meaningless things, like the snowy tips of the pine trees outside or the soft cream colour of the walls.

He only jolts out of his reverie when Kuroba moves again, brushes his fingers against Heiji’s own to turn the page.

Something warm gathers up in Heiji’s chest.

When they arrived at the cabin, Kuroba was every bit as bright and jumpy and hyper as his usual self. But as the days passed and they settled into the quiet of the mountain around them, so did Kuroba slowly settle down. He became quieter, slower, looser. He would spend hours lounging in one of the beds, or on the couch, or leaning over the kitchen table, trying out one of the many receipts he learnt at Blue Parrot. It was odd at first, seeing him like that. But they soon understood that what they were seeing was Kuroba breaking through one of his many, many fronts, Kuroba making, letting himself drop some of the tension that he was always carrying. And if sometimes his eyes would be still too bright, and his fingers would twitch constantly as if performing some invisible trick, that was alright too.

Heiji leans down and steals another sip from Kuroba’s drink.

“It’s good, right?” His voice is scratchy, like he hasn’t used it at all that day. Maybe that’s just it. “Jii showed me how to make it just before we came here.”

“Yeah.” The next sip he steals from Kuroba’s lips, and feels him shudder. “It tastes nice.”

As he pulls away, Kuroba blinks at him slowly, his head tilted. Then, at last, buries his face in Heiji’s shoulder and lets out a contented little hum.

Heiji licks his lips, savouring the sharpness of the alcohol, and thinks: Kuroba, as a rule, never drinks. He likes the taste fine, but, as he told them, he needs to be aware. He needs all of his faculties, the dexterousness of his fingers, the surety of his steps, and their absence makes him feel uneasy at best. At worst… well, neither of them likes to think about that.

But the fact that Kuroba is making these concoctions now, that he is drinking at all…

He can’t help but press a big kiss on the top of Kuroba’s head. As a response, Kuroba burrows closer.

“You’re secretly a cat, aren’t you?” Heiji asks. Kuroba raises his head and gives him another slow blink, as if to confirm his suspicions. “I knew it!” Kuroba doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

Cat, indeed. Content to lounge around and entertain himself with his own little games, but when he wants your attention, he won’t stop until he gets it. You have to wait for him to let you close, to trust you. And when he does…

“You’re comfortable,” Kuroba says. Heiji isn’t surprised -- Kudou seemed to have a similar opinion, back when he was still tiny, and he would fall asleep on Heiji’s shoulder after a drawn out case, and he still seems to think so, now that he’s bigger. But the way Kuroba says it, there is a weight behind his words.

“Am I?”

“Yeah…” Kuroba turns his head, so he can whisper his words into Heiji’s neck instead. “I feel like… I could just lean on you like this forever. And it would be alright.” He sounds drowsy, maybe he’s about to fall asleep. In an echo of Kuroba’s words, Heiji feels like he could let Kuroba rest like this for eternity.

“Can you even stay put for that long?” Kuroba bites his neck in retaliation, which, fair. But he doesn’t need to know that. He slides his hand lower, so he can cup Kuroba’s ass and squeeze, and grins when Kuroba almost drops his empty glass.

Truth is, he’s not trying to start anything, and Kuroba knows. Better yet, Kuroba is fine with it. While Kudou and Hakuba are being their insatiable selves, the two of them can just sit here.

It feels like it should be the other way around.

“I know, right?”

Heavens, he really needs to learn how to not say his thoughts out loud.

“But I like us here,” Kuroba says, even drowsier than he was a minute ago. Even this tiny admission must be strange -- if he was slightly more awake, Heiji isn’t sure he’d say it.

“I like us here, too.” For all that Heiji likes to wear his heart on his sleeve, he knows what it’s like to not say what you really mean, to keep it inside and save it for later. He’s been doing it for years now.

But they got this far already. They can take things at their own pace.

-

(Hours later, he’ll wake up to a blanket covering him and Kuroba, and Kudou leaning over them with a grin. Heiji will make fun of him for his voice, and they’ll fight about it until Kuroba pulls both of them back down to the couch.)


End file.
